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Dr. Chelsea Grimes found her passion for veterinary medicine very early on—with a little help from her aunt and the family cat.

“I was about six years old and was upset because our cat had killed a chipmunk,” she said. “My aunt, who is a veterinarian, was visiting. I was hoping she could revive the chipmunk, but that wasn’t in the cards. What she could do was perform a necropsy on the chipmunk in the name of science, showing me all the little organs and everything. I went from being distraught about the dead chipmunk to being fascinated by it. Pretty much from that point forward I was really tuned in to working with animals.”

As an only child, Dr. Grimes spent a lot of time with her pets. “I was fortunate to grow up with a lot of fantastic dogs and cats. They let me dress them up and play with them. So that human/animal bond is really important to me.”

As she took her newly adopted dog Yodi to see Dr. Veneman at Cascade Hospital for Animals, Nicole was resigned to the idea that the 5-lb. Chihuahua would probably have to be put to sleep. After all, his problems seemed insurmountable: He could barely walk, he was badly dehydrated, his entire body was swollen, and his hair was falling off in large patches. “His whole body seemed to be shutting down,” Nicole said. “It’s just that his quality of life was so poor.” She had recently taken Yodi into her home on behalf of his previous owner, who was not able to care for him anymore.

Dr. Veneman was alarmed by Yodi’s condition. “He was anemic,” she said. “His red blood cell count was low. The symptoms he presented could have been from so many potential problems, including cancer.”

You might say that Dr. Leslie Veneman was born to be a veterinarian. As a child she “always liked taking care of the little critters. I’d go to barns and take kittens, nurse them to health, and put up a free kittens sign by the road.” Her mom and dad always encouraged her love for animals, tolerating the occasional escaped pet snake, toad, or hamster.

Your cat has a vet appointment. So you go to the closet to get out the carrier…and your cat takes one look at it and runs away to hide. You trap your frightened cat and try to put her in the carrier, possibly getting scratched and bitten in the process. Finally, you get your cat into the carrier and get treated to an earful of yowling and meowing. You put the carrier in your car and risk your cat becoming physically sick from her anxiety. And all this chaos happens before the actual exam—which is a whole different adventure!

Looking back on more than 40 years as a veterinarian, Dr. Richard Siegle has seen a lot of change. Since he joined the practice in 1978, Cascade Hospital for Animals has grown from a small family veterinary practice to two clinics with 92 full- and part-time employees, and boarding, daycare, grooming, and training services. And now, with the Breton Village Animal Clinic relocating to a bigger facility soon and his son in his last year of veterinary school, Dr. Siegle has much to look forward to as well.

At first, it wasn’t clear what was wrong with Annie. According to her owner, Danielle, the trouble started when the normally healthy six-month-old puppy was suddenly unable to keep food down.

Worried, Danielle brought Annie to the hospital, where staff suspected the she had eaten something she shouldn’t have. An X-ray revealed a mysterious obstruction in Annie’s intestines. No one who examined the X-ray could figure out what Annie had swallowed. Then Dr. Becky Schafer took one look and said, “That’s a pacifier!”

Becky, the newest veterinarian at Cascade Hospital for Animals, once had the opportunity to care for a circus lion that had fallen ill while the troupe was touring West Michigan.

“I had to remind myself that despite his size, he was a lot like any other cat” said Becky, 34, a graduate of South Christian High School who received her bachelor’s degree from Calvin College and her doctorate in veterinary medicine from Michigan State University.

Christmas time can be a very exciting time for people and cats alike. After all, we put actual trees in thehouse, cover them with things that move and roll if knocked down, put a new fancy blanket that is devoidof cat hair under it and then circle it with stringy, shiny stuff. Christmas is a fantastically fun time if you are a cat.Unfortunately, many of the things that people love about Christmas can be potentially dangerous to cats.

When Dr. Kyle Fuller joined the staff of Cascade Hospital for Animals recently as an Associate Veterinarian, it was a homecoming for her in more ways than one.

Kyle has returned to her hometown after stints as a graduate of Warren Wilson College in Asheville, N.C., a graduate of the Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine, an intern at an animal hospital in Washington state and associate veterinarian in Mississippi.

It is often difficult and stressful to bring your cat into the clinic for an annual exam, but dental disease is one of the primary issues that we can find on those exams. It is a common misnomer that cats with a painful tooth or bad dental disease will stop eating. In fact, eating is an instinctual part of survival and that instinct overrides the pain and keeps them eating. Therefore, this is a not a good way to know if your cat’s mouth is painful.